


In The Army (Again)

by thinkingstar



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Borogravia, F/F, Female-Centric, Femslash, No Dialogue, POV Female Character, Post-Canon, Soldiers, War, internal POV
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:44:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2034222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinkingstar/pseuds/thinkingstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Polly, Maladicta and Igorina are back in the army. Just a quick little POV-snatch, one night, one training, all internal/description, written quickly/not betaed. Inspired partially by the Monstrous Regiment play I saw in Chicago. Polly/Maladicta femslash, heavily implied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In The Army (Again)

The dress feels wrong around her legs, though Polly’s been wearing one around The Duchess for months. The quartermaster just isn’t comfortable giving her ‘male’ pants, though, and the supposed female pants have mysteriously never arrived. So she wears the skirt over her trousers as she runs drills, shouting in soldier’s ears, over their heads and around them until they don’t even turn their heads when they hear her voice, just start marching, stabbing, digging faster instead.

Maladicta watches. Her dress seems to fit her perfectly and she moves gracefully, always perfect. A vampire is a vampire, after all, and Polly watches her enough to know that nothing’s changed. She does wear a coffee bean necklace now, and has several secret pouches on her jack filled with beans, as well as the bag she carries around publically. Polly helped sew several of those pockets, the uneven ones, and Igorina sewed the rest after Polly’s blood joined the red fabric too many times for Maladicta to ignore.

There’s no sign of any of the others rejoining the army. That’s not surprising, not since the letter from Tonker and Lofty in Ankh-Morpork, written in stained letterhead but happier than she ever saw them in Borogravia. It’s a good letter and Polly carries it in her pouch the same way she carried Paul’s letter, the same way she carries Wazzer’s letter, reminders of what she’s fighting for even if that’s really not why she returned.

At night, she and Maladicta and Igorina retire to the same tent, settle in and cook up a feast fit for a Rupert and they all have half an onion on them at all times, though Maladicta carries hers in a bag. The tent smells delicious as they sit in trousers and skirts on the cushions and Polly’s straw mattress.

Igorina always leaves first, after they’ve finished the food and the stories and the sharing, after darkness has fallen and she smiles, bright and cheerful, and promises to be back in the morning for breakfast, as long as no one gets sick or hurt overnight. She’s protective of the troops, especially the new women, and keeps a sharp eye on everyone, though no one knows where that eye actually is.

Silence falls, then, as Maladicta and Polly clean up the tent, pretending the Igorina didn’t clean up before she left and they avoid staring at each other by staring at each other’s back when they other isn’t looking. They stand a little too close, work a little closer and soon they’re touching, fingers brushing together when they pick up clean dishes or straighten the sheet on Polly’s bed.

And when nothing is left to be moved or lifted or straightened, Polly smiles and Maladicta smiles and there are far, far too many fangs but Polly isn’t frightened. Maybe she should be.

In the morning, the tent smells like coffee and Polly is sipping a cup before dawn, sitting on her bed, wondering how tight of a bun Maladicta has to keep her hair from falling down when she hangs upside down to sleep.


End file.
